


Electric Blanket

by Moorishflower



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-29
Updated: 2010-07-29
Packaged: 2017-10-10 20:40:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/104041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moorishflower/pseuds/Moorishflower
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam's been doing research, but Dean is the one who ends up curious.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Electric Blanket

  
"I don't really get it."

Dean glances up, his hands never ceasing their movements – cleaning their guns is the sort of thing that shouldn't, by any rights, be soothing, and yet Dean has found that nothing calms his nerves faster than the whisper of cloth over metal, and the smell of gun oil. It's just one of those odd contradictions that comes with being a Winchester.

Sam is hunched over his laptop, peering at the screen, the glow of it illuminating his face and throwing the shadows of his cheekbones into stark relief. Dean isn't sure if it's him or Sam, but lately his little brother has seemed…paler. Thinner. The pressure of stopping Lilith from breaking all the Seals probably isn't helping – Dean's pretty sure he's lost some weight, too.

"Don't get what?" he asks, even though he knows it's probably going to turn into some long, complicated thing that Sam has to explain to him. Sam reads scholarly articles on the internet _for fun_, and Dean doesn't quite understand that.

"The people who read Chuck's books," Sam answers. Dean hangs his head.

"_God_. And I'd managed to go a day without thinking about those books, too. Thanks for that, Sam."

Sam shrugs, and then hunches his shoulders a little bit more. He has terrible posture. Dean wads up the rag he'd been using to clean his gun and then throws it at the back of Sam's neck, but misses, and ends up hitting the wall to the left of his shoulder instead. Sam swivels around, glaring balefully. His expression smoothes out quick enough, though, that Dean knows he isn't actually annoyed.

"Just…the sheer amount of _research_ they do," Sam says. There's a note of wonder in his voice that Dean is mildly disturbed by. "I mean, some of these people have taught themselves _Enochian_ so that what they write sticks closer to canon."

"Cannon? Like you find on _ships_? What the fuck, Sam?"

Sam clears his throat. "Uh, no. It's short for 'canonical.' Stuff that actually happens in the books, so it's taken as fact."

Dean deftly packs his gun back into his duffle, making a quiet, noncommittal noise.

"I mean, I even read this article that someone had written on Wincest…"

Dean closes his eyes and counts to three. "_Wincest_, Sam? Really?"

To his credit, when Dean opens his eyes again Sam's cheeks are slightly flushed, and he looks like he'd rather be somewhere else. Which is exactly the sort of reaction the books _should_ inspire. Except Sam doesn't hate them so much as he seems _fascinated_ by them.

"It was a really well thought-out article," Sam protests. "I mean, it's based on our _fictional_ relationship, but it brought up some interesting points."

"There's a dick joke in there somewhere, I just have to find it."

Sam tilts his head, then swivels his chair back around, presenting Dean with his back. "I'm just saying it was well-written, and it made me think. The whole taboo against incest started because children born from incestuous relationships tended to have birth defects, and it got worse through the generations. I mean, look at the royal family of just about _any_ country. So, logically speaking, there's no reason to oppose a relationship between brothers, or sisters, because there's no possibility of reproduction."

"Sam," Dean says patiently. "Think about our life, just for a second. Now tell me: if a witch had the chance to get you pregnant with my baby, would they take it?"

Sam's shoulders stiffen.

"Uh," he says, and Dean shoves his duffle back under his bed.

"Exactly," he says. "Now, get off the computer before you go blind or something. You haven't slept in like, three days."

~

And that would be the end of that, except Dean can't stop thinking about it.

For one, Sam's right. Dean hasn't read any articles or done any research, but he has a smattering of knowledge about ancient history (you sort of have to, when you hunt down mythological monsters), and the royal families of just about every country in the world are pretty much fucked up beyond belief.

But you never hear anything terrible coming of two brothers (or, like Sam said, two sisters) bangin'. No monster babies, no skirmishes over crowns or thrones or whatever it was that kings and queens used to fight over…

Which isn't to say it's _good_. But it's…definitely less _bad_. And it's not like it _hurts_ anybody. As long as no one else gets involved, what happens between two adults is their business…right?

Suffice to say, Dean thinks about the topic more than is probably healthy over the next few days. Sam doesn't mention it again, and Dean can tell that he's moved on to other, more important things (like figuring out how to download the latest episode of Doctor Who, apparently), but he just…can't let it go. There are hundreds of people out there, hundreds of fans of Chuck's books, who want him and Sam to be together. _Like that_. And Dean can honestly say it's not something he's considered before, but, in the context of the books (which he _has_ read, unfortunately), it sometimes…makes sense. It's hard to trawl through all the purple prose in order to find the parts that are _actually_ him and Sam, not just Chuck's bastardized version of them, but…yeah. He thinks, sometimes, it makes sense. That two poor bastards who've never had any luck with _anyone_ else, who've devoted their lives (quite literally) to each other, _more than once_…Dean thinks it's plausible enough that they might fall in with each other. Especially considering how far outside of normal society they live. Normal people don't consider incest a viable option, but then, normal people don't hunt monsters and escape from Hell, either.

"Sam?"

He says it before he can even think about what he's going to ask – but he knows he's going to ask _something_, and, chances are, it's going to ruin his day. But there's no backing out now – Sam raises his eyes from his laptop, squinting against the bright glare of the screen.

"Hm?" he hums, noncommittally. For a moment Dean thinks he might get away with just…not saying anything else, but then Sam's eyes focus, and he tilts his screen down a little, without fully closing it. God forbid he interrupt his precious download – the wifi connection here is so shit that it's probably already taken him a few hours to get wherever he is. "What's up?"

Dean covers his mouth with one hand, and mutters into his palm. Sam stares at him.

"Uh," he says. "Sorry, I didn't…hear you."

Dean pulls his hand away, because fuck it, there's no going back _now_, is there?

"Do you ever think about it?" he blurts out, all at once, like peeling off a Band-Aid.

"..Define 'it,'" Sam says warily. "Because I think about a lot of things."

Oh god, that just makes it _worse_.

"I mean…us."

"…Dean, are we having a moment?"

"Fuck you," Dean snarls, grabbing the pillow closest to him and hurling it at Sam's head. Sam deflects it away from his laptop using his stupidly broad shoulders (and, seriously? when did Dean start using words like 'broad' to describe Sam?), making a soft noise that could be laughter, or could be a snort of derision.

"Sorry," Sam says, even though he isn't sorry _at all_. "What do you mean, 'us?' Like…the whole Lucifer and Lilith thing?"

"No, I mean _us_. You and me."

"Okay," Sam drawls. "Yes? I…think about you? On occasion?"

Dean rests his head back on his pillow-less bed and closes his eyes.

"I mean 'us' in the context of Chuck's fangirls."

He doesn't open his eyes, and Sam is quiet. Quiet for the longest time.

And then, "This is about what I said a few days ago, isn't it."

"Maybe," Dean hedges, and Sam sighs.

"Look, Dean…I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable or anything, I just meant that, the way these people write us, it makes _sense_. When was the last time you had a meaningful relationship with _anyone_ who wasn't me?"

_Lisa_, Dean thinks, except no, that doesn't work…Because he'd left. He's always left, or _been_ left, and the only person who's ever come back has been _Sam_.

"I'm not saying that what they've come up with is, you know, _factual_, but…when you read some of the stuff itself, it makes sense in the context that it's written."

"Yeah," Dean says. "But do you ever _think_ about it?"

Sam doesn't answer. After a few minutes of silence, Dean rolls onto his side.

"Never mind," he says, and tries valiantly to force himself to sleep.

~

At some point, Dean manages (despite everything that's conspiring against him) to fall asleep. Thankfully, he doesn't dream – Dean has the feeling that any dreams he has after his conversation with Sam are going to be…odd, to say the least.

Unfortunately, the amount of sleep he actually gets is substantially less than he had been hoping for, because, some time in the middle of the night, he's woken by the feeling of someone climbing into bed next to him.

Only the familiar smell of books and deodorant and Mr. Pibb keeps him from elbowing the intruder in the face.

"Sam," he says, brain still muzzy from sleep. "Sam, what's wrong?" Because the last time Sam crawled into bed with him, Sam had been eight and Dean had needed to convince him that no, his nightmare hadn't been real, and Nazi clowns weren't coming to kidnap and eat him, so everything was going to be okay. Sam's way past the whole 'running to his brother over a nightmare' stage of his life, but there's still a part of Dean that thinks '_Sam needs my help._'

"Nothing's wrong," Sam says. He's much _larger_ than he was at eight, too. The full length of him is pressed against Dean's side, with a little extra besides. He's very, very warm. Sam, unlike Dean, seems to radiate heat like a furnace, even in the middle of the summer. Dean's sometimes envied that of him, because his feet get cold easily, and it's not like he can carry an electric blanket around with him.

_I should just ask Sam to sleep next to me,_ Dean thinks blearily. _He'd make a good electric blanket._

"Then what," Dean says, shaking that notion away. Gentle fingertips touch the curve of his jaw, turning his head. Sam's face is close – possibly _too_ close – and Dean can see all the minute details of his mouth, his eyelashes, the way his irises aren't green so much as they're _hazel_ (grey-green, right now, and flecked with brown, like moss), and the small patch of skin right below his bottom lip that Sam had missed while he was shaving that morning…

He also happens to notice that Sam isn't wearing a shirt. Which, okay, is probably not the most socially acceptable thing, but maybe he just got out of the shower or something. Dean's sometimes lucky if he remembers to shower at _all_ \- he's not about to impose a curfew on Sam's bathing activities.

"I was thinking," Sam says, and Dean shifts until he's lying on his back, and Sam is sort of awkwardly leaning over him, half on and half off of Dean's chest. He's got this sort of far-away look in his eyes…like he hasn't _stopped_ thinking. Which is pretty par for the course, as far as Sam is concerned, so Dean doesn't really consider it too deeply.

Until Sam leans down and kisses him.

It's one of those weird moments where Dean is so surprised that, for a second, he literally _forgets_ what's going on. All he can focus on is the fact that his little brother has apparently learned to kiss sometime in the last twenty years or so, and Dean has absolutely _no_ idea when his relationship with Sam went from 'make sure he eats his vegetables' to 'please, sir, can I have some more.'

Because, once he gets past the initial shock, that's the first thing that Dean thinks: that Sam's the warmest, most welcoming thing he's ever had the good luck to lie next to in a bed, and he doesn't want it to stop.

Maybe that makes him sick, but Dean is tired, and lonely, and he's been thinking, too. Mostly about Sam.

Sam, who sucks on his lower lip, and then leans back, putting roughly a mile of cold air between them. He looks…he looks sort of like he's expecting to get hit, or yelled at. A sort of cringing look. Dean studies his face for the longest time, and Sam's expression gets more and more haunted, until finally Dean reaches up, curves his palm against the nape of Sam's neck, and then pulls him back down. Not to kiss, just…just to breathe in. Their mouths are barely an inch apart.

Dean clears his throat.

"So," he says. "Thinking."

"Yeah," Sam answers, and his breath is warm against Dean's cheek and jaw. It's…sort of nice.

"Sam," Dean says. "I'm tired. No more thinking."

Sam looks like he wants to protest, right up until Dean touches the curve of his waist, holding him there.

"I said no more thinking," Dean repeats. "Not 'no more doing.'"

After a moment, Sam smiles, and then settles down beside him. He's warm enough that Dean has the feeling he'll end up sweaty and uncomfortable, come morning…but for now, it's cold outside, and Sam is the best electric blanket in the world.


End file.
